TV Review: Brooklyn Nine Nine: ’48 Hours’

Brooklyn Nine Nine

S1, E7: ‘48 Hours’

Tee-hee, abuses of police power!

Grade: B-

I’ve snarked at the show’s moralising before, but you know what? I take it all back. If the alternative is to have Peralta make unconstitutional arrests and still win through based on awesomeness and luck? Give me three Christmas Carol-themed episodes back-to-back.

Peralta has a hunch that a jewel robbery was committed by a chap recently out from Rikers – a chap Peralta put away himself for something very similar. The slightest bit of lip, and Peralta jumps the gun and arrests him without a shred of evidence. This gives the precinct 48 hours to find something more substantial, or they risk a lawsuit. They have to stay at work until they find something. Their weekends are ruined, and they’re all –rightly – pissed off with Peralta. Santiago has to cancel and reschedule a date multiple times, and even Boyle stops trying to high-five Peralta (so thereis a limit!). The guy lawyers up, Peralta’s increasingly desperate gambits fail one by one, and it looks like he’s going to learn a very harsh lesson – until he pulls off a last-minute save and it turns out his borderline-illegal action is justified in retrospect. Oh, and he covers a shift for each of the colleagues whose weekends he ruined. Because that was the lesson he needed to learn? Still, Santiago and Peralta get a tiny bit of a flirt on, and it’s pretty cute. So – you know – there’s that.

The B-plot has the blossoming relationship between Holt and his new ersatz son: Sgt. Jeffords. Terry’s making excuses to avoid going home, because his obnoxious giant of a brother-in-law is visiting. So he’s sticking around the precinct even after pulling double shifts, and refusing to even go to sleep even though it means he’s doing sleep chin-ups and smothering yawns that look like a Titan’s sneeze in reverse. Terry needs his whale songs, after all. So when the brother-in-law visits, Holt gives him a sombre mission to take down a Mafia ring by his lonesome. The awestruck brother-in-law leaves, and Holt ushers Terry into his office, complete with the sounds of whalesong. Those two are awfully cute. Yes, I know nobody learned anything here either, but shush.

Odds and sods

‘I know everyone’s mad at Peralta for ruining their weekend.’ ‘…..But?’ ‘That was it. I was just demonstrating for Detective Peralta what a fact is.’

‘What are you talking about? My hair’s a mess’, says Captain Holt, looking exactly the same as he always does.

A lot of fat guy clothes have racist overtones, apparently.

What could Peralta say that would make Boyle share a toothbrush with him?

In the C-plot, Gina and Diaz push Boyle to choose between their favourite pies. He prevaricates and then outright lies about liking Diaz’s because he likes her (oy), but finally recovers his spine and his conscience as a foodie, slamming down the actual best pie of New York City and instructing them both sternly to eat.